Calcium fluoride (CaF₂) single crystal is applied to numerous industrial applications, especially for optical uses. To have excellent optical transmission properties, however, CaF₂ crystals should be carefully fabricated through liquid-phase crystal growth techniques. In this study, as one of the early stage research activities to grow CaF₂ crystals with a good transmittance at the ultraviolet wavelength range, computational thermodynamic models were provided to deepen the understanding of the crystal growing processes of CaF₂ under various conditions. To remove point defects and oxygen impurities in the grown CaF₂ crystals, the system was thermodynamically evaluated to get optimal process conditions. From the reviews of previous experimental studies, computational thermodynamic approaches were found to be an effective and powerful tool to understand the meaning of the crystal growth processes and to obtain optimal process conditions.

The top seeded solution growth (TSSG) method is an alternative technique to grow high-quality SiC crystals that has been actively studied for the last two decades. However, the TSSG method has different issues that need to be resolved when compared to the commercial SiC crystal growing method, i.e., physical vapor transport (PVT). A particular issue of the TSSG method of results from the presence of liquid droplets on the grown crystal that can remain even after crystal growth; this induces residual stress on the crystal surface. Hence, the residual droplet causes several unwanted effects on the crystal such as the initiation of micro-cracks, micro-pipes, and polytype inclusions. Therefore, this study investigated the formation of the residual droplet through multiphysics simulations and lead to the development of a liquid droplet removal method. As a result, we found that although residual liquid droplets significantly apply residual stress on the grown crystal, these could be vaporized by adopting thermal annealing processes after the relevant crystal growing steps.

In order to fabricate high-quality SiC substrates for power electronic devices, various single crystal growing methods were prepared. These include the physical vapor transport (PVT) and top seeded solution growth (TSSG) methods. All the suggested SiC growth methods generally use induction-heating furnaces. The temperature distribution in this system can be easily adjusted by changing the hot-zone design. Moreover, precise temperature control in the induction-heating furnace is favorably required to grow a high-quality crystal. Therefore, in this study, we analyzed the heat transfer in these furnaces to grow SiC crystals. As the growth temperature of SiC crystals is very high, we evaluated the effect of radiation heat transfer on the temperature distribution in induction-heating furnaces. Based on our simulation results, a heat transfer strategy that controls the radiation heat transfer was suggested to obtain the optimal temperature distribution in the PVT and TSSG methods.